THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1980 - Dreams of Leaving by The Human League

Dreams of Leaving is a song taken from The Human League's second album Travelogue. Within a year of its release in 1980 the band split and the huge international success of Human League ( Mark Two) was on its way. This, however, is The Human League (Mark One)  an entirely different kettle of fish, and actually a much more interesting band, that was very far from being bland. This version of the band wore a lot more experimentally muscular beat driven, definitely urban garb, with an off kilter pop quality that was both electro alt pop, but with an edge of the darker backstreets. Sci-fi and pop culture references abounded, These were the days when they could do an entirely electronic version of Gary Glitter's Rock 'n' Roll, and it was simply thought a bit of tongue in cheek camp, not morally suspect at all. Its actually a rather good version, look it up.

I'm choosing to focus on Dreams of Leaving, because this song is a rare occasion in The Human Leagues career, where they stepped into territory that is more socially polemical, an overt comment on society and our inhumanity towards other humans. Its a very tenderly written song, That literally takes you on an atmospheric electronic journey from one state to another. The protagonist, in the song, is living in a country run by a restrictive regime, and leaves his home country to hopefully find a new life in a free country. Only to discover he is also unwelcome there, because he's an immigrant, and reluctantly decides to leave and move further North.  But he remains optimistic, poignantly repeating that maybe there he can be - 'just like someone's neighbour'

I thought this a very apt song to highlight, given the current aggressively right wing zeitgeist re- immigration. This song asks you to consider their humanity first, the immense struggle and upheaval.an immigrant often has to go through to get here. And this is decades before the horrendous sight of overfilled boats on the edge of capsizing in the seas off our island. Only to arrive and be treated like an infection, bringing their 'foreign ways and lax morals' to our country etc etc. What a sad immoral gutter we have currently decided to plant our flag in. 

Anyway, here are the lyrics.

Someone stopped the clock when we should have started early
If we miss the morning meeting our lives will be in danger
Someone's trying to stop us, there is someone in our party
It is someone with a grudge and they won't let us reach the border

Our lives are in his hands, we pay with Krugerands
The currency of pain to help us leaving
While back in our homeland the ones who make a stand
Are taken from their homes and no one hears of them again

I felt I had to come here, I thought things would be better
The situation's changed but I find I'm still resented
Someone wants my job it is someone in this building
Someone's spreading rumours and I don't feel I can stay here

I think I'm going north and now's the time to leave
The people there they say are good to strangers
And if I do my best and try to settle in
I'm sure I can be just like someone's neighbour

I'm sure I can be just like someone's neighbour*

* Lyrics by Marsh, Oakey & Ware

BEST BEFORE DATE - 1987 - Age Of Chance - Kiss

 

I left Art School 1980 and ended up, as a graduate in graphic design working in London. Seven years later I'd forsaken design work and found work in Art Shop retailing to make ends meet. I continued to keep an enthusiasts interested eye on the music scene. When this band Age of Chance came up on my radar, I recognised the drummer, Jan Perry who was at Art College in Leeds the same time as me. Her personal image at that time had been like your classic Hilda Ogden charlady, paisley wrap around pinny and her hair held up under a headband scarf. So I was intrigued by this pivot into music .

The band was already beginning to make a name for themselves with a really hard hitting crunch of a sound. They recorded their version of Prince's Kiss, even though Prince's original had only recently charted. Age of Chance's reinterpretation of Kiss is like being hit with a sledgehammer at close quarters. The guitars sound like it could pulverise holes through concrete floors. This is pop but passed through an heavy Industrial filter. It is one of those very rare occasions when a Prince cover matches the original version, and without slavishly copying its style, makes it all their own. The grunge of this is all Age of Chance, with not a whiff of the minimalist funky Prince here. 

Though Age of Chance were music biz journalist favourites for a while, their version of Kiss only reached no 50. They never had a major hit in the UK. Changes in lead singer, eventually left Jan Perry on vocals,  until the band finally called it a day in 1990. Age of Chance had a very strong sense of its own music aesthetic - part punk part disco. Equally matched with a sharp stylistic appearance - All pure colours, American style college jackets. skinny jeans. But with two former art students in the band, what did you expect.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 2017 - Slip Away by Perfume Genius

Always seemingly existing and thriving on the arty fringes of the pop world. Perfume Genius slowly matured as an artist and songwriter until with the album No Shape where he got the nearest he has so far got to writing a hit album, its possibly his most mainstream and accessible creation. His experimental itch forces him to push at his own musical boundaries. So subsequent albums have pared back instrumentation to focus on vocal style and strength of songwriting or have been written entirely with choreography in mind.  

I have been re-listening to it lately and this track Slip Away is still such a joyful eruption of optimistic creative energy. Mike Hadreas, aka Perfume Genius has such a frail sounding voice, yet he twists and forces it into areas its probably never made for. So the tracks opens with this slow background aboriginal sounding rhythm, into which comes the light sweet tone of his solo voice, which gains harmonic company, then suddenly this thundering bass pattern hoists the track into a whole other magnificent stratosphere. I find this completely addictive. Another joy of Perfume Genius's releases are the videos, always a bit off kilter but extremely creative and memorably unique, and the one for Slip Away is no exception. 

BEST BEFORE DATE - 2006 - Baby Baby (Can I Invade Your Country) by Sparks

Way back in 2005 when the Iraq War was blazing away, all the controversy over  whether they had WMD or not raged, and Tony Blair's hair and reputation went ashen grey overnight. The next year Sparks released an album Hello Young Lovers. Now Sparks are a witty, inventive and arty combo mostly, not given to political diatribes or alternative viewpoints. On the album, however, is this sly piece of political satire Baby Baby (Can I Invade Your Country) Using the masculine metaphor of invading the feminine and conquering, they make a very pointed commentary on the actions of the US at that time. What makes this doubly plain is the use of selected lines from The Star Spangled Banner as lyrical content. To parody the ideals enshrined in the words of its own National Anthem, now being used to justify invading another country, taking away its sovereignty. In addition they've given it a country hicks musical gloss, so you can do a hoe down to it if you will. 

At the time of writing this monarchical assumption that you can take over any country you want has resurfaced in the imagination of The Tangerine Emperor. This time, not because he wants to liberate them from an oppressive regime, or bring an end to an invasion or genocide, but because he wants to expand his countries boundaries, and access their resources. In the history of American Imperialism invading is not new, but the nakedness of its bare faced acquisitiveness is. This song has thus come back to mind recently and has returned it to my daily playlist. Enjoy.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1973 - Pyjamarama - Roxy Music

Roxy Music's Virginia Plain; reached No 4 in the charts, a quite remarkable feat for a debut single. This one song introduced everyone to the bizzare unearthly delights of early Roxy Music. As a follow up to such a huge hit; Pyjamarama found itself struggling to break into the top ten. But it remains a fond favourite of mine. From its opening chiming thrang of guitar, to the popping keyboard sound that Eno, on Top of The Pops, pretended to play with drum sticks whilst wearing glittery gloves. This had a sense of something extraordinarily special about to arrive, and when it does it slides into a song that unfolds a fabulous mood. A sound uniquely, dramatically, all their own.

This also was the first time you see Bryan Ferry wearing his classic white jacket and black dicky bow tie. The moment he shifts from the slightly sinister, predatory lounge lizard to the louche lounge singer he was very soon to become famous for. Their second album For Your Pleasure was soon to be released. As was the late exit of Brian Eno. His sound treatments of instruments is all over this track. Manzanera's introductory guitar riff clangs like a bell in an echo chamber, and afterwards sounds as if he's playing partly submerged under water. The song building to a crashing crescendo,with wailing guitars and thunderous drums, determined to go out on a high.

Upstaging Mr Ferry, say not so.

Virginia Plain you could dance to, just about, but Pyjamarama it's unclear quite what's expected of you, other than to listen. It was a very strange choice of follow up single when you think about it. But I suspect it was a track they liked, but didn't quite fit with the new albums more refined style. It still bears the lingering hallmarks of the rougher more experimental debut album. It was soon to be followed by the single Street Life, which points out the direction Roxy Music were now intent on heading. Eno left because he didn't feel he needed to be part of this ultra slick version of Roxy Music, and went on to do, well, we know what he went on to do.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1998 - Abdul & Cleopatra by Jonathan Richman

Its easy to underestimate Jonathan Richman, he can be so whimsical and playfully to appear like a naif man/child. And certainly at the height of his popularity with Egyptian Reggae it did look like rock n roll went to the local play school. I saw him live at least a couple of times and it was live that you experienced how he could take over the hearts of an audience and say look lets play for a while. Yes, there is bucket loads of sentimentality, but it nevertheless has real heart, and this moves you. So you listen with delight to a song called I'm A little Dinosaur, and come away from a concert with all your cynicism momentarily removed. But then there are songs like Lonely Financial Zone which beautifully capture the soulessness of a financial district when everything is closed for the weekend. I guess what I'm saying is the guy had charm and the talent to back it up.

What I appreciate about Abdul & Cleopatra is how firmly tongue in cheek it is, the lyrics on occasion delightfully forced into their rhymes.

'Adbul's not seen Cleopatra, It's been almost now a year, And how I wonder where she's at-ra, As I wander through this world.'

This is classic Jonathan Richman, great sense of rock n roll at its most pure direct and punchy, allied to a silliness that is wonderful to hear unfold. 

'Well, Cleopatra take my patience and test it. Test it, Cleopatra take your time as you may. My time has been well spent. I dun cleaned up my tent. You'll like it when you see it someday.'

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 2010 - Wonderful Life by Hurts

This is one crackingly good song, surrounded by a cleanly orchestrated full body of synths and rhythms, saxophones, guitar and a impassive vocal. It's off beat tumbling back rhythm moves the song along on its positivist route. Whilst the rest of it exudes a weary European melancholic drone. Whilst he reminds his love object not to let go of the wonderfulness of life.

It's a shame that this never made sufficient impact in the UK charts at the time. Perhaps it referred back too much to a previous era of synth duos, to stand out as distinct twenty years later.  Hurts have gone on to have greater success in Europe than the UK. But nothing they've released seems quite to match the song quality and production glory of this debut single.

Ditto its video. When Hurts got picked up by RCA they completely re did the original video. It was all monumental Modernism and Mediterranean lifestyle with statuesque dancers galore. Whereas the original video looked like it was set and filmed in someone's basement living room. Starkly heightened black and white, exaggerated textures, the fuzzed edges to the film framing, all hiding a lot underneath its stylistic sheen. The background behind composed of carpet tiles and rolls of fibre insulation.

Then there are the two guys. One blank faced on the synth, the other expressionless on the microphone. Oh, and a female friend who they brought in just because they know she can dance. Dressed in a black lace off the shoulder dress. She stares out at nothing, and when called for to gesticulate, her limbs moving wildly in angles to the music. During one pause, you see her pulling down the bottom of her dress, to straighten the hemline. The posed gaucheness of this video really works, it said something quite distinct about Hurst as a group, a mixture of rough and smooth.. The second video version the record company, took elements of the first and threw money at them, but could never hope to capture or improve on. It had an honest rough arty edge, whilst the other was a conventionally stylish bit of slick fakery.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1982 - Seven Songs by 23 Skidoo

 

The early 1980's, in the wide ranging movement that was post punk, there was one musical vein of exploration that eventually formed its own sub genre 'industrial.' The bastard off spring of many dissonant unclassifiable bands that clattered around the cataclysmic fringes of the punk phenomena. Of whom were - Throbbing Gristle, Cabaret Voltaire, A Certain Ratio, The Pop Group and This Heat. The second wave of bands that owed something in their origins to these bands -Test Department - Chaak - 23 Skidoo all beat out a singular path, one that was all their own.

23 Skidoo formed in 1979, with a much subtler and broader sweep of soundscapes than any of the bands that preceded them. Yes, there were shafts of avant garde jazz and funk in there, but also tribal styled percussion, dub, found sounds and voice recordings, over amplified slabs of sound coming down on you like crashing walls. The cumulative effect often creating a tone of total unease. 

23 Skidoo were probably one of the first bands that ventured into areas that 'post'rock' formats would develop and expand on in the early 1990's. Strong on mood, atmosphere and happy to shift time signatures abruptly, often veering off into an all out jam. Identifiable sources are few for what 23 Skidoo released in the early 1980's. 

Seven Songs was their 1982 debut album, which along with the earlier ten minute opus of The Gospel Comes To New Guinea and an EP Tearing Up The Plans, showed a band almost too assured in its adventurousness to survive for long. The most recent re-release of Seven Songs includes these EP's in their track listings. With The Culling Is Coming album, released the following year, the experimental, sonic abstraction side of the bands output took over precedence. An uneven release, part modern Gamelan style workout on one side and a live improvised recording on the other. The band fractured apart after this, and what was left made the altogether more accessible, but less challenging Urban Gamelan album in 1984. And though there have been brief bits of activity by former band members, and compilations, since then, the band as heard on Seven Songs was essentially never heard of again.

To give you a flavour of the spectrum of music they cover, here are three tracks by them. Kundalini opens the album, with a despairing squeal of a trumpet sound, before a galloping drum rhythm cranks up. Interspersed as it is by slashes of cross cutting sounds, this has a sparse groove, but a distinctly unnerving one filled with foreboding.

Opening with the thwack of an echoing bass, Porto Base has sounds and voices fade in and out of it. Mainly an older woman, sounding like it maybe one of the Mitford sisters, getting increasingly irate about the deleterious effects of effeminate hand gestures, which leads her to mention Hitler.

The track Gregouka, opens with the moaning of ephemeral chanting, over which a hard edged drum rhythm and a sour clarinet sound play in and out of each other. It possesses an other worldly character, alien, alluring and altogether unsettling.

Seven Songs is one of those albums. once heard, lives on in your imagination. A much over looked classic of the 1980's.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1981 & 1983 - Homosapian & Telephone Operator by Pete Shelley

With the disbanding of The Buzzcocks Pete Shelley struck off in an entirely new direction. His first single as a solo artist was Homosapian. Largely electronic, which was still thought radical even in 1981, his approach also became more personal. 

Homosapian strongly made the case for love being the same whether it was within a heterosexual or homosexual relationship. Shelley was bi-sexual. and was taking a brave step in being so publicly frank about his feelings in song. This was pioneering at the time. Predating Bronski Beat by three years, in releasing a campaigning song defending queer love and relationships.

And it is a danceable addictive song too. One of Shelley's best, delivered with huge passion and gusto. Despite all this it never reached the UK Chart. The BBC reputedly discouraged it being played, without actually banning it, because of an allusion to gay sex in its lyric. But it did chart in the US, Canada and Australia, and became a huge dancefloor filler in nightclubs, gay and otherwise, across the world.

Two years on, and the single Telephone Operator, is another electronic driven love song. This time its a guy who thinks he's in love with a telephone operator. So he phones them over and over again. It's a really offkilter song, with overtones of stalking to modern ears. But that was very much Shelley's compositional style to place love in an less sympathetic, even discomforting context. It also contains one of Shelley's finest vocal perfomances.

Telephone Operator didn't chart either, only reaching No 66. Though often gaining critical praise for his recorded work, this was not transfering into sufficient sales to sustain a solo career. There was in his appearance, that constant staring directly into camera, there was always something sneery and provoking about it. Shelley, though small in stature, was not remotely cuddly, and would never have been, nor would have wanted to be, the archetypal pop star. At the end of the eighties The Buzzcocks reformed, but this was strictly for fans only. Further commercial success continued to evade them.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1978 - The Light Pours Out of Me by Magazine

Meanwhile, post leaving the Buzzcocks, in an entirely other realm of 1978. Howard Devoto, having had the briefest sojourn away from the limelight, reveals the first fruits of his distinctly peculiar vision.

Magazine, formed in 1977 were one of the first bands whom you might call Post Punk. There was the sense that Devoto just wasn't going to wait for the punk bubble to burst as it inevitably would, he'd puncture it first himself. Releasing Shot by Both Sides in January of 1978 which reached 41 in the charts. Perhaps encapsulating in song the furore that greeted his leaving the Buzzcocks.

There was always a feeling that Magazine were really the then unfashionable thing - an albums band. So it was not til the LP Real Life that you got a fuller more rounded sense of what they were really about. This album contained a cache of songs that Devoto had originally written with Pete Shelley before he'd even left the Buzzcocks.

The stand out track is The Light Pours Out Of Me. It has the most recognisible and instantly captivating openings of any song. The pounding opening drum, the rumbling thrum of its bass and the magisterial guitar that proudly rings out the architecture of its riff. As though declaring the entrance of some beast, emporer, or nascent thing of importance. Its also as moody as hell. There's the expectant build up, then enters the hammy theatricality of Devoto's proto goth vocal intonations. Bleakly menacing as though the living dead were given voice - Time flies, Time Crawls, Like an insect, Up and down the walls - The light pours out of me. 

As with many Devoto songs there's an existential dilemma being worked out through imagery in song form. The tune is addictive listening, but it's lyrical opacity is so deliberate. Evocative but not allowing you to perceive its true meaning - Is this person deluded, a danger? Who on earth do they think they are? Some sort of Magus, a demon, a godlike figure? What drug are they being consumed by?

Devoto's visual style of performance possesses no charm, a nerdy creep, rather than creepy.. He was fortunate to have assembled behind him a band of hugely talented musicians, containing the inestimable Barry Adamson and John McGeogh within it. The Light Pours Out of Me has just one of McGeogh's guitar riffs and its a classy corker. It's not for nothing he is rated by his contemporaries as The Guitarist of his generation. But his contribution to Magazine was not to last long. McGeogh left in 1980 to ornament the golden years of Siouxsie & the Banshees, and Magazine entirely folded the following year.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1978 - Love You More by The Buzzcocks

Having survived Devoto's abrupt departure. The Buzzcocks needed to capitalise on the momentum their Spiral Scratch EP had created. Their next single, released in November 1977 was deemed so controversial, it was banned 

Orgasm Addict, was a peon to masturbation, including a mock ejaculatory outcry. It was still part of the zeitgeist to provocatively offend. What Pete Shelley did subsequently was to refine, then entirely alter the future mood music of punk. Evolving it into the New Wave. This still had the propulsive speed and energy of punk, but allied it to broken hearted love songs with melodies.

Two singles later, the Buzzcocks songs were mellowing, yet still hovered outside the top thirty.  Love You More was the simplest of love songs. It got a tiny bit closer to the main chart, at number 32. Its protagonist is worried about how long his new love will last - I don't want to end up like a nine day wonder -  he opines. Was the lack of longevity in relationships linked to him not loving someone enough?  Otherwise it will last until - the razor cuts - and then the song abruptly ends. Doesn't sound healthy does it? Shelley knew how to bring the suggestion of an edge to even the most conventional sounding love song.

After Love You More, a series of propulsively driven love songs, with catchy lyrical hooks and Pete Shelley's whining vocal style were released. Ever Fallen In Love With Somone You Shouldn't Have Fallen in Love With? finally broke into the top twenty peaking at No 12. Two other top twenty hits followed. The next single ended just outside the top thirty again. At which point the band split due to difficulties with their record company. But in truth, they had already wrung the life out of their current musical style by then.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1977 - Boredom by The Buzzcocks

It is a story now approaching myth and legend. The Sex Pistols play the Manchester Free Trade Hall and simultaneously launched punk in the North of England and numerous notable musical careers. 

Before Punk there wasn't any Indie music movement. These days the Internet can launch a career from a single Instagram post. In the seventies it was very much a hands on affair. The self produced, self cover designed  self publicised and self distributed single, assembled in someone's bedsit or squat, became the archetype of those who were truly independent. There are likely many competitor's for who did this first. But the one that set the template was The Buzzcock's ' Spiral Scratch EP.  From now on anyone could do it.

The Buzzcocks in 1977, there they are on the cover fuzzy in black and white. The creative force and lead singer at this point was Howard Devoto. Though everyone sang in those days in permutations of Johnny Rotten's style. Devoto gave it a sardonic darker twist. And though he gets most of the songwriting credits, there was also Pete Shelley hiding in the background perfecting his writing chops, as well as the obligatory insolent straight to camera stare.

The defining style of an era, and the prototype for the New Wave, is in one track from Spiral Scratch -  Boredom. Driven on minimalistic propulsion and a lyrical hook line that goes Boredom Bore..da..am Badum Badum. Plus a guitar break so minimal  consisting of two discordant notes played over and over and over, becomes genius. The timing of it, two minutes fifty two, is short, but quite immaculately conceived.

This version of The Buzzcocks barely lasted a few months after the single took off. With Devoto leaving in order to - forge a new musical direction for himself. Which left the way clear for Shelley to assume main songwriter and lead singer duties. And hence the blossoming of a masterful songwriter of three minute power pop.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 2006 - Marble House by The Knife

Whatever, Olaf & Karen Dreijer were set on when they formed The Knife in 1999, it was generally a pretty disjointed mode. An electronic based brother and sister duo notable for the studied furiousness with which they pursued their eclectic muse. Their first two albums, The Knife 2001 and Deep Cuts 2003, were composed of tracks where each one was going off on an entirely fresh oblique tangent from the last. Then they wrote the track Heartbeats, which they sold to Sony to be used on an advert, that went viral and became a hit for Jose Gonzales in 2003. Suddenly they were awash with money in a swanky new studio they could afford to build for themselves. 

Their next album Silent Shout 2006 was by far the most polished and commercially successful recording they made. The oddness was still there, as was their refusal to appear in their own videos, so we still have people miming as them, or animations. The Knife continued being determined to approach everything from the most oblique angle to be found. Much of The Knife's off kilter feel arose out of Karen Dreijer's vocal style. Continually sounding as though she were Bjork's mentally deranged second cousin, which is saying something.

Marble House is a latin tinged track from Silent Shout. It's remarkable in their recordings for the sense of warmth and delicacy with which it deals with its subject matter. The song is about an aging couple living in their home, caring for each other out of love, when this is becoming increasingly more difficult. It is for me one of their finest and most poignant moments.

I cut your nails and comb your hair
I carry you down the stairs
I wanted to see right through from the other side
I wanted to walk a trail with no end in sight

The moment we believe that we have never met
Another kind of love it's easy to forget
When we are all alone then we do both agree
We have a thing in common, this was meant to be

You close my eyes and soothe my ears
You heal my wounds and dry my tears
On the inside of this marble house I grow
And the seeds I sow will grow up prisoners too

The moment we believe that we have never met
Another kind of love it's easy to forget
When we are all alone then we do both agree
We have a thing in common, this was meant to be

Now where's your shoulder, what is its name
What's your scent, say it again
If it goes faster
Can you still follow me
It must be safe
When it's on TV

I raise my hands to heaven for curiosity
I don't know what to ask for, what has it got for me
The others say we're hiding, it's as forward as can be
Some things I do for money, some things I do for free

After this, the duo deliberately set out to sabotage their own pop success. This involved doing what they'd previously done by instinct, but this time very very self consciously re-asserted.  All the disconcerting playfulness, charm and freaky fun, replaced with confrontational weirdness, underpinned with a left field gender politics. With the album Shaking The Habitual, the last from this duo, their was still a glimmer left of the old The Knife there, in amongst the radical sloganeering. But it often felt as though this was far too forced and stridently contrived. 

Karen Dreijer, went off to do Fever Ray, which, aside from the debut album that was perfect, has proved eventually to fall fowl of the same bizzare strained over stretching for oddity over originality, that plagued the final years of The Knife. Olaf has also released stuff since the The Knife, but hardly noticed in the UK. Though never actually finished, The Knife is still in the position of being temporarily shelved, with occasional flurries of excitable rumours about reforming, which have not yet surfaced into being found to be true.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1978 - She Is Beyond Good & Evil by The Pop Group

Barely at times a band, let alone a pop group. The song She Is Beyond Good & Evil has a shambolic slack quality to it, as though something monstrous is forming right before your eyes, made up on the spare of the moment. Huge success evaded them, or more likely was unconsciously evaded by there own instinctive actions. The Pop Group were formed in Bristol by the late Mark Stewart in 1977. Like many post punk bands they picked eclectically from a wide range of musical influences and sources - dub, free form jazz, avante funk and welded themselves this massive yet fragile sound, always teetering on the edge of falling completely apart. Unsurprisingly none of their output even brushed the outer edges of any national chart. Because this may be pop, but with a disconcerting integrity and menacing grist.

They did, however, prove hugely influential and an inspiration on countless bands, Nick Cave for one being deeply impressed with their uncompromising bravado, how they stuck to their guns. Former band members went on to form Pigbag (Simon Underwood)and Rip Rig & Panic (Gareth Sager). The latter's stylistic borrowings from The Pop Group taken one step further into almost a stream of consciousness type of free improvisations. 

The Pop Group set the template for what any post punk band should be. Punk had all too quickly fossilised into a formulaic genre. Post Punk, picked up and carried the anarchic flag forward, furiously uncompromising, musically adventures, independently minded, strident in the politics they espoused, highly critical of society and contemporary culture. The Pop Group's first iteration from 1977-1981 produced two albums and three singles. They reformed in 2010 and were still active up until Stewart's untimely demise, producing two more albums and four singles.

She Is Beyond Good & Evil, is a quintessential track by The Pop Group from their first period of activity. The snappy dub infused snare drum, rumble bass and choppy funk guitar, over which Mark Stewart moans, intones and decries with an atypical discomforting intensity. Was this man entirely sane?  Accompanied by a video composed of filmed live performances, which at times may or may not be of them performing this song. Its representative of their visual style, all cut up and collage like, sound and visuals out of sync, with a super 8 type unfocused quality, rough hewn,fuzzy edged imagery. It makes a suitable companion as an extension of the music's own improvised haphazardly thrown together modus operandi.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1980 - The Friend Catcher by The Birthday Party

I appear to be mining my love for heavily feedbacked guitar with some recent posts in this series. Here is another one, this time from The Birthday Party's debut album - Hee Haw. Though the Birthday Party came to prominence in the post punk era, they were only loosely related to that. They certainly took some of its desire to explore the boundless musical extremities, similar to The Pop Group. Despite Nick Cave's youthful exploration of dissolute histrionics, he is also exploring the quirks of a number of his own literary interests. His liking for drawing dark, twisted folklorish characters in his songs is exemplified here in The Friend Catcher. Musically The Birthday Party had few references to traditional rock, preferring to amplify a perverted mix of fairground, music hall and nursery rhymes. Everything turned up to a high volume of unsettling weirdness.

You can see the stylistic trajectory of Nick Cave's early career stretching out from this one track. Blessed as he was with a talented band of fellow musical brothers on the fringes. Tracy Pew on bass, given to consuming alcohol and drugs to the excess, who would to die six years on from this moment. There is Roland S Howard owner of the wild despairing guitar sound. Leaving the band before they morphed into the Bad Seeds. Died at the age of 50 from chronic Hepatitis C. Leaving only Cave and Mick Harvey from that band. Cave appears always to need a close musical collaborator and Harvey provided that for a long time. Caves dominant creative urgency and drive is, I imagine, a satisfying wave to ride with for a while. Aligning your own momentum to it. But it might also cramp or suffocate one's own.

She, by my chinny chin.chin.
Eee-oh Eee-oh
Like a zippo smokes the way
Hope, around
You and your lungs and your wrists
They throb like trains
Choo choo choose
It's a prison of sound
I poke around...

Whatever this is all about, it doesn't come across as remotely healthy. Painting a heightened picture of the darker side of humanity. A malign gothic gremlin emerging from the shadow side of our murky collective psyche.

 

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1974 - You Forget To Answer by Nico

In 1974 Nico found herself on the same record label as friend and former Velvet Underground member John Cale, who'd produced and played on earlier albums. Together they performed a concert at London's Rainbow Theatre, along with Brian Eno, Phil Manzanera and Kevin Ayers. Edited down it made the album titled - June 1 1974. This was the album that introduced me to Nico's distinctly enigmatic, melancholic music. She only sang one song on the June 1 !974 album, a rather daring nine minute plus version of The Doors song The End.  Eno, Manzenera and Cale were all subsequently to appear on her fourth album The End later that year. You Forget To Answer is from that LP.

Nico, John Cale & Brian Eno 1974

Listened to now that album is remarkable for its emotional range and musical versatility. Previous Nico albums tended to sound quite dourly uniform, with just Nico, on her harmonium, and sparse musical accompaniment. Here the music has more of an expansive breadth, almost a lushness to it, whilst still remaining intrinsically a romantically bleak view of the world. Its brim full of her sadness and references to Nico's life and loves. There is real pain here, and I find You Forget To Answer is particularly touching. At this time she was in the middle of ten years in a rather dependent, and occasionally abusive relationship, with the French avant garde film maker Phillipe Garrel. When it came to falling in love, Nico knew how to pick em.

Nico & Jim Morrison

You Forget To Answer, however, concerns a much earlier besotted love affair with the late Jim Morrison. The only lover, so she said, who truly made her happy and appeared to understand her. But he was already married, and eventually returned to his wife. It was during that relationship with Morrison she'd begun her serious experimentation with drugs and resulting dependency on heroin. You Forget To Answer is about a particularly distressing memory, of her misery at having phoned Morrison and being unable to reach him, on the day that he died. The song is filled with tender longing, a sense of regret at the fate of their relationship, and how unbearable the loss of him still felt to her three years later. It is a somber yet beautiful elegy to Morrison, it encapsulates the overall musical tone and theme of the entire album - death and bereavement. It opens with a gorgeous descending synthesizer from Eno, falling in immense emotionally mournful waves. Cale's guitar plangently pulls rills and rings out across the track. Whilst Nico intones in her characteristic manner -When I remember what to say, You will know me again. And you forget to answer.  

You Forget To Answer is classic Nico, brave, open, uncompromising, morbid certainly, yet daring to go deeper. As ever, The End received a mixed reception. The mostly male music reviewers being pretty negative, essentially hanging their misogyny on her and effectively saying - cheer up love, get off the smack and get a life - oh, and maybe stop making this dreary music while you at it.. Which sort of entirely misses the point of the album really. She was, unbeknownst to her, preparing the way for a whole host of adventurous female artists as diverse as Patti Smith, Bjork, Karin Dreijer and Anna Von Hassewolff, to follow in her wake.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1984 - To Hell With Poverty by Gang of Four

I saw the Gang of Four when I was a student in Leeds, in a club space above the Merrion Centre on a double bill with The Mekons. They were at this point still borrowing The Mekon's drummer to complete their line up. Both bands had attitude, though a little shambolic Gang of Four had a stridency which put them a cut above the rest. Word was getting around about them in Leeds as a band to watch out for. 

Unapologetically political they managed to meld radical uncompromising music to match it. All without it getting too worthy or preachy. They had two things in their favour, an unerring ear for a catchy riff or song and the wailing noise guitar playing style of Andy Gill. Both of these evident on To Hell With Poverty.

Five years on from their debut album Entertainment, To Hell with Poverty launched a move away from the stripped back post punk they'd been known for since they'd formed in 1976. Andy Gill is still the fulcrum of cacophony at its centre with his chainsaw guitar announcing a ferocious explosion of controlled feedback from the very beginning, which, as ever, is broken into by this thumping great rhythm, which has been poorly described as disco punk. But there was in this new direction still an avante guarde abrasiveness, politically punchy, with a danceable quality they'd not previously been known for before. There is a dissolute feeling for when there is nothing left of value, all there is to do is 'get drunk on cheap wine'  Yep, I've known that feeling.

 

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1979 - Love Like Anthrax by Gang of Four

With their 1979 debut Entertainment Gang of Four released an album of material they'd honed and polished from years of pub gigs in the backstreets of Leeds and beyond. If any band captured the Zeitgeist of post punk's political activism Gang of Four were it. In Thatcher's Britain the lack of any effective political opposition ( remind you of anything| now) meant progressive activism moved outside parliament and fell on the shoulders of contemporary music culture. Gang of Four were the most clearly left wing of the lot, flying the red flag for socialism high. I can't imagine few bands would do so these days. But one has to remember the collapse of the USSR was still over ten years away and such idealistic political puritanism was still possible in the late 70's. Their stridency in this regard produces on Entertainment a clear and consistent musical statement. It is quite rightly still rated as one of the best releases of the post punk era. 

The sound stripped back and sparse, is built around the axe slaying of the late great Andy Gill. Love Like Anthrax concludes Entertainment with such a cool insouciance. A type of dry minimalism permeates it that utterly captures ones attention from the start. The highly amped nature of Gill's guitar playing means it forever teeters on the edge of surrendering itself up to the most glorious of feedback noise. Love Like Anthrax begins, as many of Gang of Four's best tracks do, with the electric buzz and crackling of Gill's guitar into which the drums later pound in, imposing structural discipline. That all this sonic free form sturm und drang is going to be put to good use. But having woken us up with this wall of despairing racket, we then get deadpan vocals and an echoing voice running at cross purposes with each other. Interspersed with cultural analysis, this is that rare species the anti- love song with a commentary running through it.

Woke up , desperation AM,
(Love crops up a lot as something to sing about, because most groups)
What I've been saying won't say them again,
(make most of their songs about falling in love,or how happy they are)
My heads not empty its full with my brain
( to be in love - you occasionally wonder why these groups)
The thoughts I 'm thinking, like piss down a drain
(do sing about it all the time, piss down the drain)

As you can imagine, though Gang of Four were more than capable of being catchy songwriters, this clever juxtaposition of song with reflexive contextual analysis was not to everyone's cuppa tea. Combined with their consistently abrasive approach to music making, this meant their singles never broke into the top 50 and their highest album chart position was with Entertainment at number 45. But Love Like Anthrax remains this beautiful well mounted pearl of a thing to listen to.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1978 - I Can't Stand Myself - James Chance & The Contortions

James Chance & The Contortions emerged from the late 70's No Wave scene in New York, the US version of post punk. Out of it came some interesting hybrids - The Swans, Lydia Lunch, The Lounge Lizards, DNA, Teenage Jesus & The Jerks, Theoretical Girls to name a few of note. Brian Eno was brought in to produce a compilation album in 1978 to capture the nascent flowers of this moment, before they succumbed to the short livedness of their own trash aesthetic. For most of these bands operated on a fatal cutting edge. An art infused wallowing in the primal joy of dissonance and screaming into a microphone as a vocal style.

And so that brings us to Mr James Chance, channelling a mutated form of James Brown, with a voice ravaged by too much coarse cut hand rolled nicotine. He was never going to be a poster boy in a teenagers bedroom. Because this was a musical career that had car crash written all over it. To say I Can't Stand Myself is edgy punk funk would be to understate what is really going on here. This man is audibly on self destruct, pushing himself right over a wall topped with inserts of cut glass. Then picking his bloody form off the floor gives you the most blistering siren of a saxophone solo. As if imitating the death wail of a goose being strangled.  The sound captured here has intensity and excitement in every disheveled groove. With a virus of tawdry sex running through it. Its punk mixed with jazz cocktail, lethally exploding in the gutter.

James Chance, despite all the opportunities he's no doubt given himself to abuse his body to death, is alive and still working at the age of 70. Most of his output from the 1970's onwards has been live albums. These perhaps best capture the febrile nervy wired beast that is him. A man quite happy to be forgotten on the fringes of popular music, because that is where he's been able to do what the hell he liked, to the hilt.

THE BEST BEFORE DATE - 1981 - Papa's Gotta A Brand New Pigbag - Pigbag

 

Pigbag were a large band, eight musicians based in Cheltenham. Only Simon Underwood had any previous music career, once being a member of the post punk outfit The Pop Group. They'd been highly influential, but too innovative to ever be commercially successful. In many ways Pigbag drew on a very similar rag bag of sources, combining funk, punk, ska, reggae and afro beat, to them, similar to Rip Rig & Panic, but with a much lighter hearted tone. Papa's Gotta A Brand New Pigbag's played on its James Brown antecedent and was a huge crowd pleaser at gigs and was a shoe in for their first single release in May 1981. Reaching No 3 in the charts, things were looking good. The album that followed in 1982 Dr Heckle & Mr Jive went straight to No 1. But they never seemed to be able to overcome the template that first tune laid down. In 1983 after releasing three albums within one year, the band split, all of them unhappy with the direction their music had taken.

But Papa's Gotta Brand New Pigbag was a highlight of the early eighties post punk boom. And rose to fame around the time the British Ska revival reached its peak. In many ways bands like Madness stole a lot of Pigbag's thunder in the large eccentric band slot , but were able to broaden and develop their style and transcend the ska revival they rose to fame on. Pigbag could never quite work out how to do that. So they became another addition to the long list of one hit wonders.